I’ve be reluctant to post this, but after I’ve seen countless people ask this question and get the wrong answer from the people we look to for these types of answers I thought I’d try to let the truth to come out.
First off let me start by saying this topic of can using Adwords give you an increase in the natural rankings in Google was first addressed by the now famous AdWordsAdvisor & GoogleGuy in December of 2003. [webmasterworld.com...] Why do I mention this well its one of only a couple times in history that Both AdWordsAdvisor & GoogleGuy replied to the same question. In fact the two postings came within 4 hours of each other and were actual one right after another. Again strange why would both Google representatives reply to the same question with roughly the same answer? The answer is I believe is they wanted to make sure you the user would believe what they said.
Google is a great company and has a great public image of being a down to earth, couple guys in front of a computer feel, but they also have a very corporate core, which most users never see. Well we got into this corporate side of Google and it’s helped our corporation use and understand Google better. One of the things that we’ve been able to document was by using Adwords, Google can affect you within the natural Google results. This is 100% documented by Google and is available to people that can access some of the corporate Google information.
Does this mean that Google does this for every website that uses Adwords, NO! Actually we were only able to officially document 4 cases of this. I will quote AdwordsAdviors as he did said it best “I really think it amounts to a numbers game. With roughly 4,285,199,774 pages in the SERPs - and many tens of thousands of advertisers in AdWords, there are bound to be coincidental intersections between the two.” [webmasterworld.com...] So they do this, but maybe the fact that they do it only for select advertisers makes it more unfair then them doing it at all. What are your thoughts?
As for specifics, I have sent a “sticky” to AdWordsAdvisor & GoogleGuy to let them respond to this posting and to give you the specifics I’ve left off this posting.
I would like Google to redeem itself by apologizing for this and correcting this if their official policy is "No connection between search and AdWords" which was stated by AdwordsAdvisor [webmasterworld.com...]
No, but make the policies fare and clear. If they want to say using Adwords can’t increase you in the serp, then don't post links to advertisers that use Adwords in articles about that advertiser Adwords use.
bateman_ap
How can you say “the links aren't hurting anyone” what about the competitors of these sites, you might understand PR and how linking benefits sites and I guarantee these sites are getting benefits from this that there competitors aren’t.
Now magnify this, ForRent.com’s major competitors are also active Adwords advertisers has Google affected the ranking on the serp for ForRent.com in a positive way YES, have they done the same for the competitors site no. Now how is this impartial?
What did these 4 advertisers do to get this special treatment, what did the other 21 success stories do to not warrant this special treatment and what can our corporation do to get any special treatment?
How would you like it if tomorrow Google plink to your major competitors and left you off the list.
GoogleGuy
“pretty understandable to either link or not link” that’s a statement from a company that doesn’t have policy in place. AdwordsAdvisor posted that the policy from Google was not to affect the serp from using Adwords, by linking to these advertisers sites within the content of there Adwords use you go against this policy.
Had these documents been about as you say the Google Search Appliance then the connection wouldn’t be there but these documents are about Adwords and the use of Adwords by these advertisers. Id doesn’t get more direct then that. You’ve in essence created your own little directory of Adwords advertisers that you manually decide to link to.
All you've done is suggest that Google is using linking to give special favours to advertisers, and while you could absolutely be correct there are few here likely to believe that Google has such a dark motive.
(Here's another SEM tip: use customer testimonials on your website. They help conversions! It's possible Google may be aware of this one too).
I do not believe natural results are influenced by AdSense however I do believe in bigfoot, the loch ness monster, the moon landing was staged, the pyramids were created by aliens that now live in area 51...
Of course that's why I won't rat on him.
You’ve in essence created your own little directory of Adwords advertisers that you manually decide to link to
Is this why google have got a PR 10 then? ;)
David you are digging yourself into a deeper hole matey, you have received replies from people who have a lot of knowledge in these area's and you are still doubting their comments.
I am not saying you are wrong and I have experienced ways to get into google via back doors but in no time at all these little bugs (for want of a better word) are soon corrected.
What may of worked (if it ever did) in 2003 certainly wont work now especially when you have got 1200 google PhD's on full red alert after seeing this post ;)
;)
"First link, PR8. Second link, PR6. Third link, PR6. Except for the PR8, links from PR6 pages are very common. "
Strange, I am seeing PR 0 on all the mentioned pages!
That must have been some quick penalization action by Google. hehe:)
Actually, the sites had other problems besides redirection and the redirection was the type that allowed back button to work and now that I think about about 2-3 months ago another client was asked by Adwords rep to stop using content in CSS that was not visible or they would get penalized.
Do you believe everything the Government tells you?
...wow...
So, there is a direct benefit some advertisers get at the expense of their competitors. Is there an industry in this? "We know how to get you featured by Google. We'll advise you on what changes you need to make to improve your chances...one link from the Google site is probably worth more than all the links you've ever collected to date..."?
DavidGreen, I believe you may have got a "better" response to your point if you dropped what looks like paranoia.
I don't think Google would like to see that happens.
We rank at the top on yahoo/msn and jeeves and the new msn beta for several hundred keywords. We are the only ones in our DMOZ category that has to use Adwords. We got links, we got PR, no spam bla bla bla...
G$ will never rank us well. They don't want to lose the $$$'$
I happen to see the exam paper Google have for new recruitments. One of the question is what you think Google's corporate culture is. I believe the third choice is the correct answer - Don't do evil.
Don't do evil.
...at least intentionally!
You all are right I was totally wrong to think that linking to an Adwords advertiser’s site with over 60 links from 60 different IPs could help a site at all in the serp. This is nothing that any of us would what to happen to our sites and I feel really sorry for ForRent.com that this happened to them.
For those who would like to see the 60 plus pages that Google has linked to example.com check this high-tech way that we found this out:
<removed URL>
Again I apologize, if Google should want to punish us for this we would sadly accept that they give us the same treatment they gave ForRent.com as I’ll take the links even though we all seem to agree that this can’t help in the serp.
Glad to see that we all understand how search engines work and the negative values in getting links, I would hate for people to get the wrong idea and possibly find fault in Google.
Sincerely Yours,
David Green
[edited by: eWhisper at 2:13 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2004]
[edit reason] No URL Drops Please [/edit]
I thought after the Martian invasion of our planet that it had ceased.
For those who would like to see the 60 plus pages that Google has linked to ForRent.com check this high-tech way that we found this out:
Every google computer on the planet will display any static pages after the [*.google.*...] if it's requested. The fact that any of those variations show up is most likely because of an error in alexa's search engine in following relative links.
As far as google is concerned, those pages aren't just somewhat similar, they are 100% bit-for-bit identical. Every major search engine is running duplicate content filters that will accurately label any extra pages in this case as being mirrors or backup copies and subsequently ignore all but one for the purposes of ranking.
So, only one of those links is ever gonna count. The whole 60 links, 60 IPs thing is a ridiculous assertion. It's one link, from one site.
I would hate for people to get the wrong idea and possibly find fault in Google.
There's "finding fault in" a company, then there's "groping in the dark for any semblance of the potential for fault and publishing that semblance for a potential fault on a website declaring it's the be-all, end-all for the reputation of" a company.
If this is the worst thing anyone can dig up on Google, then Google is doing alright in the corporate ethics department.
